Bowie called out the racism in the most chill, yet devastating way.

That look from Bowie says it all

Gotta love the mind of this man!

Really interesting discussion, you tend to forget how it was back in the day, I was a naive 10yo in 83.
Bowie is intelligent, articulate and opinionated with conviction...but not rude or aggressive.
Great interview.

The way he just stares at him, not taking any of his shit

This was at the height of his mainstream success and he used his position to call out injustice and directly confront people about it. Something that is almost entirely lacking from the most successful musical artists today.

MTV only started playing Michael Jackson and Prince after CBS records told MTV if you don’t play Billie Jean they would pull every single artist off MTV on the CBS roster.

David Bowie - a National Treasure from my home town - always exhibited an eloquence which was unexpected from a rock star and which took people, particularly journalists with an agenda by surprise.

Incredibly perceptive, he wasn't afraid to challenge them which often resulted in the flustered response you see here. 😆🇬🇧

Bowie was spot on. Mark was talking as though they couldn't cater to more than just white kids in Wisconsin. I would hope he looks back on that and cringes. It was very much upholding the status quo because they thought it made them more money. I'm glad Bowie pushed back.

Bowie says that MTV ought to take up the challenge to integrate media “>>especially<<of anything in musical terms.” (06:34) This jumped out at me because Bowie is basically saying contemporary music owes so much to Black artists, and here you are making money hand over fist off of that legacy.

It’s great to see the channel help promulgate these still highly-relevant ideas. After all, while Black music really has made fantastic strides, Black people are still dealing with vicious racism up to and including being murdered by cops in the street. Nice job all.

Prince is from mid west😂.
Only Bowie voiced out in style n classy for Black musicians . He used black musicians in his works in mid 70s blended in every talents regardless of colors 😊 .

Mark Goodman should’ve known better than state the thing about white artists were just STARTING to implement  “black sound “on “white music “ into mainstream radio, tv, etc… When in reality white artists have been taking from black artists since the beginning of rock ‘n’ roll, even before.
We wouldn’t have rock music without black artists in blues, boogie woogie, and even gospel influences.

Bowie’s face said it all! He knew when to call out b.s. and make a point like a gentleman.

This was definitely what we at MTV called b-roll. I think someone dug it out of the library and put it out there. I’ll bet $$$ Mark wishes it wasn’t floating around. 🤦‍♀️

Here David wasn't so much directing his questions to Mark,
as he was to the executives and producers who were standing behind the curtain.

It was a very fun watch back then and looks like MTV caved in because they didn’t have no choice

It was a very fun watch back then and looks like MTV caved in because they didn’t have no choice at that time run DMC had two records that were rock oriented that was the king of rock and rock box which MTV refused to play, which made run DMC eventually the first rap group to be played on MTV along with Prince

Absolutely LOVE what David Bowie (RIP) did here! More than one reason he's known as The Chameleon - wasn't just for his ever changing personas, but for the varying genre music he created! 1983? Let's Dance was out, featuring such prolific funk talents as Nile Rodgers, and blues virtuoso Stevie Ray Vaughn (also RIP). You'd almost say Bowie was colour blind when it came to musical talent!
I just get a laugh that he wasn't putting up with the sh!t Goodman was shoveling. The whole concept of 'playing to the crowd' was B.S. given you had variety shows like Midnight Special, Soul Train (of which Bowie was one of the first white artists to perform on) present as various type of music as existed!
Over time, we needed champions like Bowie, The Beatles, Stones, Sinatra, Dean Martin that would stand up to the segregated attitudes in the States. They had (and used) their power to inflict & influence change! And rightfully so.
Good music is complete colourblind! Cheers!

It’s crazy, right? His answer to MTV not featuring black artists was that they didn’t want to risk upsetting the racists in their audience. Bowie handled it really well. He pushed back a bit, pressed him just a enough to be polite and allow the interviewer to do the talking, and the interviewer just kept lengthening the rope on his own.

MTV had only been around for 2 years? 1.5? At this point?

He’s really towing company line but no doubt he’s a racist and Bowie new it and Bowie was cooking him and he didn’t even realise